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Category: Institutions

A Puzzling Pattern in the Humanities

Big news in Alberta the other day: the University of Alberta has decided to cut fourteen (14!) programs, in the humanities. That’s on top of a programs cull just two years ago in which seventeen programs – mostly in Arts – were also axed! Oh my God! War on the humanities, etc, etc. Or at least that’s the way it sounds, until you read the fine print around the announcement and realise that these fourteen programs, collectively, have 30 students

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January 23, 2017 10 Comments

More Bleak Data, But This Time on Colleges

Everyone seems to be enjoying data on graduate outcomes, so I thought I’d keep the party going by looking at similar data from Ontario colleges. But first, some of you have written to me suggesting I should throw some caveats on what’s been covered so far. So let me get a few things out of the way. First, I goofed when saying that there was no data on response rates from these surveys. Apparently there is and I just missed

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January 18, 2017 No Comments

Ever-bleaker Graduate Employment Data?

So just before I quit blogging in December, the Council of Ontario Universities released its annual survey of graduate outcomes, this time of the class of 2013.  The release contained the usual platitudes: “future is bright”, “vast majority getting well-paying jobs”, etc etc.   And I suppose if one looks at a single year’s results in isolation, one can make that case.  But a look at longer-term trends suggests cause for concern. These surveys began at the behest of the provincial

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January 16, 2017 1 Comment

The Politicization of University Accounting

Back in the fall, the Canadian Alliance of University Teachers (CAUT) published an interesting little guidebook called CAUT’s Guide to Analyzing University & College Financial Statements, written by Cameron and Janet Morrill, two profs at the University of Manitoba’s Asper School of Business.  Stripped to its essentials, it purports to be a DIY guide for faculty to help hold their institutions to account over finances. Nothing wrong with that.  Learning how to read financial statements is a good thing.  The

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January 10, 2017 1 Comment

How International Tuition Fees Keep Canadian Universities Afloat

Everyone knows that international student numbers have been going up over the past decade or so. What you might not know is what kind of effect that’s having on university budgets. So, today, a few brief tables and charts. First, tuition fees for international undergraduate students. Nationally, these have been growing at a rate of inflation +4% over the past decade, which is substantially faster than the rise in domestic tuition (roughly, inflation +1.5%). Nationally, the average international tuition is

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December 12, 2016 4 Comments
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One Thought to Start Your Day is our founder and CEO Alex Usher’s popular daily blog, brimming with up-to-the-minute insights and informed opinions on today’s higher education industry.

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